How to tell if your copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4 is counterfeit…

Early this week we decided it was time to update our aging copy of Photoshop to the latest version – Photoshop CS4 Extended – but balked at the RRP (around £800). A quick search of the usual outlets proved there were some savings to be made, including several on eBay and a couple of Amazon Resellers.[more]

Knowing that Amazon would provide their usual high level of customer service if we ran into problems we chanced a Reseller with good feedback and handed over nearly £250.00.

Now, that’s clearly a heck of saving, but still proper money – certainly 95% of all software is cheaper than £250 so whilst we were slightly suspicious we had high hopes. How naive.

The package arrived two days later and initial impressions were excellent, it was shrink wrapped, looked right, used good quality paper and had a custom box (see pic on left). An un-boxing video on YouTube proved the contents were right too.

The software also installed smoothly and activated without any drama (more on that later). I was 90% sure we’d snapped a bargain when I had a good look at two of the pamphlets in the box – the print quality was horrible, terrible gradients and blurry text (see pic below). It was very hard to imagine Adobe would allow this through their quality control, especially with the price of Photoshop being what it is.

Since there was no absolute way to be sure I called Adobe Customer Service on 0207 365 0733 and quoted the serial number. Guess what? We’d just paid £250 for a Torrent download in a pretty box.

Knowing that we had a counterfeit copy I took another look at the packaging and the discs, and with the exception of those pamphlets it was incredibly good. Arguably they could have used higher quality ink (the blue rubbed off onto the grey inner box in many places) but the attention to detail is unbelievable, with light Adobe logos in all the right places, appropriate stickers, screen printed DVD’s etc.

How To Tell

So how to tell for sure? To cheat the Adobe activation system this pirate copy made an amendment to our TCP/IP HOSTS file upon installation – all the proof you could possibly need. If you open your hosts file (file locations here) you’ll see two new lines:

These essentially deprive the PC of access to those websites by forcing the connection attempt back to your PC, creating an Internet dead-end.

We were lucky – we were suspicious and got a refund. There must be a large number of people out there who had good quality printing throughout their box, or didn’t want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, who will only discover they paid hundreds of pounds for a worthless copy when they need Adobe support or want to (legitimately) upgrade to the newest version. Given the number of these packages that are currently on eBay this must be widespread.

I don’t have much sympathy for Adobe here. By pricing the software well above £500 they have created this market. It must have cost a fair bit of money to make such an accurate copy of the Photoshop packaging, but the reason a factory will choose to do so is simple – there is an opening for selling this software at £100-£400 – a massive profit for those involved. If Adobe charged £200, maybe this market would not exist, and we’d have bought directly from Adobe – probably as a digital download, the most profitable transaction they can have.

The saddest part is that many of the purchasers of this counterfeit software are “trying to do the right thing” – as opposed to stealing it from a torrent site. They end up with an illegal, hacked copy, and a long line of criminals making a easy buck off of them, probably leading right back to China.

UPDATE: 16/02/2010- Windows 7

I have heard that on Windows 7, by default, there isn’t enough authority for the installation program to modify the Hosts file, leaving communication with the Adobe “mothership” wide open. The result is that on first run the serial number will be dis-approved and CS4 will no longer run on that PC, at least with the supplied serial number. I assume Adobe secrete something in the registry but I haven’t looked any deeper. At this point I guess it’s pretty obvious your copy is a fake! Does anyone have any experience of this?

teeveedee

tony

[quote]Are there ANY identifiers on the unopened, shrink wrapped package?[/quote]
No, that's what makes it so interesting.

[quote]Much better to refuse to purchase than claim a refund.[/quote]
How do you do that when the majority of these items are being sold via eBay and Amazon Marketplace? You buy/pay before you can see the item.

Danny

I had brought a fake copy from ebay of CS3 extended.The box, disks, and paper work where of very high quality. The fastest way to test it is ring adobe directly with the serial, your know within seconds, no need to even install it.

I agree Adobe should not charge such a high price, and for people like me that need the tools in Photoshop their price is way over the top. I wan lagit software, but cant see Adobe helping people who cant afford their over the top prices.

The most sad thing was that Adobe didnt care when I offered to provide the details of the seller and the evidence.

Eugene

What I am thinkig personally. If you want to buy original product, doesn't matter what it is, you just go to the retail store pay over the top dollar and at this point you sure that you get the right product. But if you want to save a lots of money you start searching all over the internet. And when you getting the price four times less than in retail store everybody thinking that they got lucky. My point is that the life is not fairy tayle and nothing is free. So if you want authentic products you should pay a lot of money. But if you cheap and don't have enough money, don't complain!!!! That's it!!!!! This is the tru of life!!!

tony

Sure, that's a valid point, you certainly do get what you pay for. But I think the general argument is that Adobe have made their software prohibitively expensive, creating a gap in the market for all of these fraudulent copies of their software (and apparently, they don't really care).

It would be nice if they followed the lead of Microsoft, who have begun to accept the situation, reacting with the home and student pricing models.

And from our point of view, we are a small company with only an occasional need for Photoshop, yet it is by far the most expensive piece of software we use (by about 4 times). We would be happy with a version that was several editions old - the reason we were on Amazon Marketplace in the first instance.

Geoff

I feel really sick , i bid for what i thought was a new sealed photoshop 3
extended , off e bay , and ended up with a pirate version the same.
i ended up bidding £190-00 , it took me 9 weeks to save up this money,
it is sickening to think these scumbags, probably makes mores than this amount of money in a couple of hours ,
is there anything i can do to get some of my hard earned cash back.
regards Geoff uk

tony

Geoff, we're sorry to hear your woes, this is exactly our problem with this situation - students and people starting out do not have the money to pay £thousands for the software and are generally the ones being caught out.

In your situation I'd firstly try to take it up with the seller - be polite and ask for a refund. If the seller has an eBay shop then they are duty bound by the distance seller act to accept a return and refund your money. If they are not, then they are still duty bound by eBay's terms and conditions for selling fraudulent goods.

If they do not refund your money, then take it up with eBay and PayPal - log a PayPal dispute.

Good Luck.

Sally

My partner and I have both bought Photoshop CS3 and more recently Photoshop CS4 Extended from eBay which turned out to be top notch fakes. Unfortunately I bought my CS4 back in August last year as a Buy it Now for £129.50 and it looked to me absolutely legit - packaging, inserts, disks etc and I had no reason to think that it was not genuine.

The mistake I made was not to install it because I was waiting to buy a new PC, so it sat on the shelf until a fortnight ago when I tried to install it on my new Windows 7 PC. I had trouble loaded it as the Autorun didn't launch (although when I tried it on my XP machine I didn't have any problem}, so I bypassed that managed to load it. It initially appeared to activate and I tested it briefly but the second time I launched it the activation window popped up asking for the code but when I entered this I got the red cross. Following communication with Adobe I was told that the code was invalid. I am now in conversation with Trading Standards who are pursuing the complaint which was my only hope as eBay and PayPal wash their hands of problems after 90 days. Given the trouble I've had my partner then checked his Photoshop CS3 also purchased from eBay in Spring last year which he hadn't installed - once again it looked totally legit. However a phone call to Adobe came back with the same answer - invalid activation code.
I am now really wary of anything being sold on eBay. A safer option is probably to buy an earlier used CS2 from eBay because you can have comfirmation that the serial number works, get registration transferred and then buy a genuine upgrade which will be less of a strain on the wallet.

phil

funny that, i also fell for this trick however i £50 for mine, now first of all the copy ive got actually worked perfect, until my computer had a virus(which was nothing to do with the photoshop). i then re-installed it but 2 of the shared componenets of cs3 failed, having seen this article and checked with adobe with the serial number. now i only wish that the virus didn't mess up the computer otherwise i'd still have photoshop.

Colin

I got caught with that too, bought from Amazon marketplace, worked fine on XP, just over a year later I decided to upgrade to Windows 7, it even started to download updates, then up popped the window telling me I had an invalid serial number.
The problem with wherever you purchase Photoshop CS, is everyone hides behind not accepting returns if opened (the only way you can check the serial number) I know they should take it back, but could hide behind 'it has been opened'
Amazon say they do not allow counterfeit software to be sold on their site.

Colin

I got caught by that too.
Purchased CS4 extended through Amazon Marketplace, installed it on a machine running XP ran fine, even updated itself. A little over a year later I decided to upgrade to Windows 7, sure enough it installed after having to open the program to use the autorun, since it would not just run from DVD, launched it, started to download updates, then up popped the window saying I had an invalid serial number.
I contacted Adobe who confirmed it was fake, I then informed Amazon, who told me they did not allow counterfeit goods to be sold on their site.
The problem with wherever you purchase software is, sellers usually state they will only accept goods back if still sealed, not much use since it has to be opened to verify the serial number is legit, I realise it should be accepted back due to it being counterfeit, but some will hide behind the 'it has been opened' clause.

Colin

As a footnote to my previous comments, with the assistance of Adobe, Amazon have now arranged a refund.
Having now purchased a real copy of CS4, as most people have said there is next to nothing between the copies, just subtle differences like quality of printing on the DVD.

Lesliech

For all those who use Windows 7, I can confirm you can only get past the initial install before it starts crapping out saying "invalid serial number"...

I just got a copy here in New Zealand and I found this site soon after the fact. I'm trying to ask for a refund now. I don't think even the seller understands he is selling counterfeits, saying he "sold many and never had any problems"...

Goodness gracious.

paul

I too have been stung. The first tell tale sign should have been, when i inserted the disc and the autorun kicked in, it would not initialize install wizard. I just kept on getting that awful sounding clank and a File Access Denied box pop-up.

So daft bugger i am went down the manual route to install it. After the usual type in serial and later rejection, i checked my norton security and got loads of risk hits. I noticed most were blocked due to being assessed as unauthorized actions on the computer. best option is to download "GIMP", it's legit, does the same(98%) as photoshop and best of all it's free and so are the updates.

Stuff Adobe if they don't want to be bothered to address this situation to better prospective consumers or themselves.

ron

I just bought photoshop cs3 through an ebay auction for a great price. The DVD did not even work and looked "weird" on the data side. Packaging was perfect, but the printing on the training DVD was off-kilter. Fortunately I just got a refund. Now I am seeing photoshop cs4 available for the same price (buy it now), but I'm steering clear of that based on what I am reading about pirated software!

Mike

These massive multi billion dollar companies once had their production and distribution businesses set up in a western countries employing 10s of thousands of people. The chance then came along to take advantage of third world slave labour paying $2USD a day to the poor chinese factory worker to work 12 hours a day 28 days a month.

These companies have abandoned the western world and put thousands on the unemployment queue, They have reduced their operational costs by 80% but still sell their products at pre move offshore prices. I am disgusted by their corporate greed and exploitation of slave labor and clear lack of conscience in supporting the country it makes almost all of its revenues from.

You people expect us to have a moral obligation to support Adobe and buy authentic programmes yet Adobe clearly has no conscience in taking advantage of slave labor dumpling thousands of jobs and seeing many out of work for life in their never ending quest to make more money.

So the opportunnity to buy a knockoff copy of CS4 that works perfectly well at a fraction of Adobes prices is not a problem for me, especially if that money goes to the exploited.

Adobe I love your programme but your morals ethics disgust me. More power to counterfeiters. I refuse to pay retail prices for any software programme untill they move their businesses back to a western country.

Sue & Ian

We just wanted to say how relieved we were to find your blog entry about fake Abode software. It looks like we too have fallen into the trap! We just purchased Dreamweaver CS4 from a seller on ebay and when we came to enter our serial product number it came up as an invalid number. We spoke to Adobe on live help and they confirmed it was not a valid number! We now have to pursue a claim through ebay which will take for ever!

Just wanted to ask one question. We looked at You Tube video ‘unboxing Photoshop CS4’ and we saw on there that the box has a slide out inner box with lid. Do you know whether this is the same with the Dreamweaver CS4. Ours seems to have an inner box section but this has no lid. Just wondered if this may be a tell tale sign.

Mike

If you get a copy of CS4 for 1/4 of the price and it works perfectly well what are you complaining about??

Are you the same people who when you go to Thailand or Vietnam Hong Kong etc that you do not buy any of the knock off clothing Diesal, Billabong Armani, Gucci for example??

I see thousands of tourists come home through Brisbane airport, Yes I work in customs, bringing home knock off belts, bags, clothes, golf clubs etc. I bet all of you yes every one will when you travel to these countries will buy if your female, a knock off Loui Vitton, Gucci, Prada, DKNY, Quess hand bags and tops etc at 1/10 of its retail price, and blokes I bet you'll buy knock off wallets belts shirts jeans etc. I see it from everyone who comes back from Phuket and Hong Kong.

Why is it that you'll happily buy perfectly working knockoff bags wallets and clothing and brag about it to all your friends, yet when you buy a programme for 1/4 of its retail price, and it works perfectly well you whinge that it is a knock off.

If you buy a copy of CS4 and it works what are you whinging for, you got a programme that works and saved $1000 so now you can take that holiday to Phuket and stock up on knock off clothing and accessories?????

blind date

If you buy a copy of CS4 and it works what are you whinging for, you got a programme that works and saved $1000 so now you can take that holiday to Phuket and stock up on knock off clothing and accessories?????

eda

I LIKE comment that was posted by Mike
He is totally right'
about people complaining all the time
they want to buy genuine adobe photoshop cs4 extended for 120$ knowing that there is no way to have it cheaper than 900$ the same was with VERTU phones
I paid 200$ in China for the best vertu copy phone
I sold it on ebay for 260$ so after paying fees I only earned 15$
the guy told me that I sold him a fake phone
that was so funny for 260$ he wanted the vertu phone to be genuine And the genuine the same look costs 12000$ so this is funny

Dave Traish

Thanks for your article on Photoshop, my experience is very similar. I bought a copy of what was advertised on Amazon as Photoshop CS4. Unfortunately when I received it, I did not notice that it was an upgrade version until I had taken the cellophane off. I am pretty certain that it was not initially advertised as an upgrade version, but in the detailed order I received, it was described as an upgrade. The box conataining the software was also not clear as to the version of Photoshop it was, with the word upgrade on the side of the box in small letters, but just Adobe Photoshop CS4 extended on the front. It was as if Adobe was trying to fool you into thinking it was the full version themselves. I could understand why the retailer would use the title of the software exactly as stated on the front of the box 'Adobe Photoshop CS4 extended'. My only course of action therefore was to purchase a previous version and use the upgrade to get to CS4. I ordered a CS3 version from Amazon, again from the Marketplace section. When I tried to install the software, it appeared that I could register the software, but my suspicions were aroused by what I had seen on the NET. I unloaded and restarted Photoshop 3 to check that my registration data was still present. It was not. I became very suspicious at this stage, checking to see how many times I could register the software. It became immediately obvious that all communication with Adobe on the NET was being bypassed by the software probably for the same reasons you described. When I tried to upgrade, I fully expected to find that the upgrade would find that the CS3 serial number was not valid. I was not disappointed. As you found as well, the manual was full of poorly reproduced photographs, so I concluded that the software was counterfeit. I must admit on my part, that there was an element of, it was avertised by Amazon, so it must be O.K. I felt that Amazon would not like to be associated with counterfeit software. I am gaining a distinct impression that Amazon are not too bothered about the situation, or have come across this situation before and prefer to ignore the problem. Adobe must have quite a serious problem on their hands regarding the counterfeiting of their software, and I wonder if the many versions coming out has something to do with them trying to protect their software. As you quite rightly said, the price has an awful lot to do with the situation.

Paul

The version you bought would probably have been from a third party seller.
I have since discovered a lot of Photoshop software advertised from thrird party sellers, when you check feedback you will find they have "Just launched" an account. Avoid Like the plague. I got in touch with adobe when i had problems with mine. Copied and pasted our dialogue to a word document and sent numerous letters of complaint to seller. Then put a complaint and a claim to amazon. If amazon sold the item through their own supply you should be able to claim back plus they have sold an illeagal copy therfore committing fraud. But amazon don't sell photoshop it is normally through a third party seller.

Thomas

Glad posts like this are out here...I was skeptical of PS-CS4 Extd copy I bought on eBay, and found my host file was duped - thanks to this post. The copy was brilliant, and I had no indications that it was a fake accept for an odd sticky note from the seller and some cheesy-looking inserts in the box. Having caught a virus in the past - even with Norton's most current, most expensive security planket, I am a bit fearful my data's been compromised. So far, no systems dumps nor massive volumes of reports from clients.

I contacted Adobe, and reported the issue. Their Anti-piracy team contacted me a few days later, and so my jacked copy, receipts, and correspondence with eBay and the seller are on their way to CA...We'll see how far this goes; but, I'm not going to hold my breath. Even if the seller is caught, I'm sure a billion others are waiting to take his place.

None the less, keep sharing knowledge...It's truly powerful, and can help so many people stay out of trouble! I'm greatful.

Juegos

Phil White

I have ordered CS4 from Amazon UK and is is being shipped directly from their warehouse.
After reading this article i will be contacting Adobe to see if it is a fake when it arives.
My question is that how can i give Adobe the info thay need without breaking the sealed box and then not being able to return it as a result of breaking the seal.

Paul

If it has cost less than £200 and the sellers feedback is "just launched". Send it back! It should have a holographic style sticker with bumps on, if it is a genuine product. You can go to the adobe helpline and maybe give the pn number the below barcode. or if the,"made in usa" looks Rubber stamped.

Regards

Paul.

Phil White

Phil White

Hey Paul, i have only just took delivery of the suspect CS4 today.
You mentioned that it will have a holographic sticker with bumps on if it is genuine, it has!! this is on the box under the shrink wrap if that is the one you mean.It has the Adobe logo on the sticker with the words genuine Adobe in embossed gold.

The barcode sticker looks good enough to me.

The box itself looks cheap and unconvincing for such a product.

I am not convinced that it is genuine and have not removed the shrink wrap.

paul

Sounds like you are one of the lucky ones. When i bought my copy of CS4, It did not have any holographic stickers on the box. I since then bought the elements Photographic and video software package that had the holographic sticker on the box.

Most or all the dodgy cs4's out there do not have the sticker as it is very difficult to forge. The outside box may look thin but this is just an outer sleeve. to me, it sounds like you have bagged the real deal. Study the sticker and if it looks perfectly fine, ei; The gold parts have adobe embedded in the holographic's and the big A is a nice red it should be legit. The sticker or will probably be placed that when the box is opened it will break the seal or separate part of the sticker. I can't quite remember from mine. Goodluck and best regards.
Paul

Phil White

Phil White

I looked at the hologram more closely only to realise that it was not a hologram as we know them to be. It did look convincing but there were no changes to the hologram when you looked over it from different angles.

It was returned to Amazon unopened for a refund

Guy

I recently purchased Lightroom sold directly from Amazon (not a reseller). It has the holographic sticker and the box says "Printed in the U.S.A.". After reading this I'm suspicious. I was also burned by a purchase on eBay and I don't want to get burned again. It doesn't seem like Amazon would be selling counterfeits though.

Adobe won't offer a "Home" edition of Photoshop because they know small businesses and contractors would use that instead of the "Professional" edition. I would be curious to know if the increase in sales to people seeking legitimate licenses would compensate for it.

Elements is not Photoshop. Their features overlap but there are deviations beyond the work flow differences (which is also important). Of note is the absence of the color spaces, quick mask and channels.

Chris

I WISH I had known about this or seen these posts before I bought Photoshop CS 4 from Amazon Marketplace in May 2010. The product arrived, appeared to be legitimate. I installed it; it worked fine and appeared to activate successfully.
I then didn't use that computer for months, as I was still using my old computer and was debating whether or not to install XP on the new machine before switching all of my working files over.
When I finally got around to doing so, I fired up Photoshop and got a little message informing me that my serial was invalid. A few hours of internet-crawling later, I had some "telltale signs" to look for. I found several:
1. No warranty card
2. Spelling mistakes in the packaging
3. "Made in Singapore" in very small letters on one disc.
4. The autorun didn't work properly so I installed it manually.

I have been unsuccessful in getting a refund from Amazon or my credit card company, as more than 90 days have elapsed since the purchase.

SO: Avoid 3rd-party sellers like the plague, and tell as many people as possible that all those copies of photoshop on Ebay and Amazon Marketplace are sophisticated, but ultimately illegal and non-functional fakes.

chris

I agree with many. Quit crying about a copy. If you save $1000, and it works, shut up!!!!!! Not everyone can afford a REAL copy of this, so if I can buy it for $200, I am happy. This is all about you dumb rich idiots, who can afford it, and just shup up already! Also, these sellers selling these are just trying to make money to SURVIVE, and feed their family......You crybabies make me sick!!!!

Jack Sparrow

Of course they did not.
What a bunch of naive idiotic people in this world.
Dont always be so quick to blame China when you should be blaming the manufacturerfor pirated software!!!
And no, I dont mean because of high prices, I mean because the manufacturer is behind a lot of the piracy. They will usually only go after businesses and corporates.

Why?
Simple.
If you at home are using pirated Microsoft, Adobe, or similar software from large vendors it means you already have that products skills for the work place. This means that instead of businesses and corporates having to train staff on new software and suffer an expensive learning curve, they will purchase the nice expensive Corporate Licensed Software Packages with full support contracts.

How do you think serials can be released BEFORE the software is when a last minute release delay suddenly occurs catching out the Manufacturer as happened to Microsoft with Vista.
If